


Better Than A Hot Stone Massage

by silveradept



Category: RWBY
Genre: Crushes, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fluffy Compared To Canon, Maybe/Maybe Not Bumblebee Because Yang's Not Telling, Mentioned Blake Belladonna/Sun Wukong, Mentioned Ilia Amitola/Blake Belladonna, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 00:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16843180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Penny rescues team RWBY, Qrow, and Oscar from a persistent Grimm horde, but a snowstorm blocks further progress and the team has to settle into a cave for the night, bringing Ruby and Penny into closer contact than either of them would have imagined.





	Better Than A Hot Stone Massage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TereziMakara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TereziMakara/gifts).



"Ugh! How many of these things _are_ there?" Yang shouted as she punched yet another of the Grimm chasing the relic in the face, and added a shotgun blast to make sure it didn't get back up.

"More than I have bullets for," Ruby shouted back. "There's got to be a way to hold them off!"

"Sal-u-tations!" exclaimed a blur of something, jumping into the fray and slamming several swords attached by thin wires to her body through creatures of Grimm. Standing up, the girl began whirling the blades around through an intricate dance, making effortless cuts and thrusts through the onrushing Grimm until the wave she was facing was cut through completely.

"Penny!" Ruby cried out happily, Semblance-tackling the girl to the snow before she could return all the swords to herself.

"Hello again, Ruby. I'm pleased to see you well. What are you doing near Atlas?" Penny said, continuing to put away the swords without hurting Ruby.

"It's a long story," Ruby said. "And it's not important because you're alive! I thought you were gone after the Vytal Festival."

"I suffered a defeat at the festival from Pyrrha. Then I was rebuilt and rebooted and I've been going all around Atlas learning combat and defeating Grimm. How is Pyrrha, by the way?"

Ruby looked at the other members of her team, Qrow, and Oscar in fright, making a wordless plea for someone else to say what had happened.

"Miss Nikos is no longer with us at Beacon," Ozpin-as-Oscar said, as matter-of-factly as he could muster.

"Oh. Okay," Penny said. "Who are you?"

"That's Oz--car." Ruby said, noticing just in time the warning looks on everyone's face about revealing Oscar's dual nature. "We picked him up in Mistral and he's...really knowledgeable about the world, so he helps a lot with making sure we know the local customs!"

"I'm so glad you're making friends!" Penny said. "We have so much to talk about. It's been two years since I saw you last."

"We have a mission to do, Penny," Weiss said. "Can you take us to General Ironwood? We have something very important that he'll want to see."

"Ab-so-lutely! You might want to hide that lamp, though," Penny said, pointing at the Relic. "There's something about it that feels Grimm."

"Yes," Yang said, trying and failing to hide her aggravation at the secrets that Ozpin had withheld from all of them about the nature of their conflict. "It does, doesn't it?"

"Road trip!" Ruby yelled, forcing a cheerfulness into her voice that she hoped Penny would pick up on. "Do you have something for us to ride on, Penny?"

"Nope!" Penny said equally as cheerfully, although genuinely. "We'll have to go by foot."

"Well, then we should start tomorrow," Qrow said, looking at the horizon. "The sun's going to go down soon, and we'll need a place to rest and get out of the cold."

"Excellent idea," Oscar said. "There's a cave not too far from here that we can take shelter in."

Five minutes later, the traveling party was dry, sleeping and watch arrangements had been made, and Penny and Ruby were sitting next to each other, scanning the landscape outside for the next inevitable attack.

"Ruby?" Penny asked. "Do you still think of me as a girl?"

"What do you mean?" Ruby replied.

"You saw what happened to my body. You could have pretended before that all the things you saw weren't really what happened, but you saw me...well, you saw what happened to Penny 1.0, more precisely."

"Yeah," Ruby said sadly. "I watched my friend die. I never thought I would see you again, and it made me sad."

Penny brightened. "But now I've got a new body. I'm Penny 2.0, and I'm even more combat ready than I was before! And now we're together again, Ruby! I'm back with my friend! But I'm not sure that my friend sees me the same way," she concluded, less brightly.

"What? Of course I see you the same way," Ruby said. "You look like Penny and you talk like Penny and you're all whoosh-whaa-hiyaaaaaahhh-zwaaang with those swords the same way like Penny. Why would I see you differently?"

"Because I'm a robot, Ruby," Penny said matter-of-factly. "If General Ironwood knew how, he could make an entire army of me, and the only difference would be that we had different serial numbers."

"But you'd still be Penny," Ruby said. "Those other robots might look like you and do really cool things like you, but they wouldn't be you. Because they wouldn't have your experiences."

"But it's not the same body, Ruby!" Penny said, an edge of fright into her voice. "How can I be the same person if I'm not in the same body?"

Ruby tensed a little bit, according to Penny's sensors, but then relaxed into a chuckle.

"I've had to learn recently that bodies aren't really the indicator of who we are," Ruby said. "You'd probably have to ask Oz--car about that, though. He might be able to help you more than I can. You're still Penny to me, though, no matter what body you're in."

Penny gave Ruby a hug.

"Too tight," Ruby gurgled.

"Sorry," Penny said, relaxing her grip. "I'm still getting used to this new body. It feels awkward. Maybe it's like puberty?"

Ruby flushed scarlet.

"What's wrong, Ruby?" Penny asked. "Are you embarrassed to talk about the hormonal changes in your body?"

"No," Ruby said. "Yang and Qrow have already taught me more than I ever wanted to know about that."

"Are you worried about unwelcome advances from men because of your developing body?"

"No," Ruby said, more forcefully. "I can take care of myself. And...I think there are some people here who would enjoy punching someone across the room if they tried to 'corrupt my innocence,' or whatever it is in Blake's books...that I totally wasn't reading when she wasn't looking."

Penny thought on this for several seconds before continuing.

"Are you concerned about falling in love, Ruby?" she asked.

"No," Ruby said immediately. "Yes. Maybe. Ugh, it's complicated."

Ruby leaned on Penny, sighing.

"You're warm, Penny," Ruby said, surprised.

"I generate a lot of heat," Penny said. "I have vents all over my body, disguised as pores and freckles that keep me from suffering critical system failures. If you would like, we could arrange ourselves in a way that would allow for maximum heat transference from me to you."

Ruby's blush deepened.

"My sensors indicate there are no creatures of Grimm nearby," Penny said. "There is no danger to you from cuddling, and your body temperature is colder than usual."

Ruby hesitantly arranged herself in Penny's lap, focusing on the warmth coming from Penny's body rather than the heat she felt coming from her own.

"This is nice," Ruby said. "I feel much warmer already."

"I can direct the heat through my vents, too," Penny said, demonstrating by putting her hands on Ruby's shoulders and making them very comfortably warm, even through the clothing Ruby had on. "I'm better than a hot stone massage!"

"That's....very nice," Ruby concluded, feeling the knots in her shoulders start to loosen with Penny's heat and gentle massage. Penny continued to massage Ruby for a minute as Ruby progressively relaxed more.

"Why are you afraid of falling in love, Ruby?"

Penny felt Ruby tense significantly at the question.

"You're not young to let go of that question, are you, Penny?" Ruby said, sighing.

"Nope!" Penny said cheerily.

"It's...it's very complicated," Ruby ventured. "Dad fell in love twice, both times with his teammate, and both times he had to raise the daughter from that pairing mostly alone. Uncle Qrow...I think he cares for some people very much, and it hurts him a lot not to be with them. I'm pretty sure Jaune and Pyrrha were dating before she d--broke his heart, and Weiss almost d--id the same thing to him, which unlocked his Semblance. It's really cool! He can supercharge anybody's Aura and make them way faster, stronger, and tougher than they might otherwise be! Too bad they were on the other part of the train. They would have loved to see you again."

Penny nodded. "It sounds like you've been on quite the adventure, Ruby."

"Yeah," Ruby smiled. "it's been tough. We've all grown up a lot."

"Are you worried about your team breaking apart?" Penny asked. "Romantic relationships do happen a lot when you have people who trust each other with their lives every day."

"Yeah. Maybe," Ruby said softly. "Weiss seems like she might be defrosting a bit toward Jaune, and Blake...Blake has a lot of people interested in her."

"Oh?" Penny said brightly. "I always like to have a complete relationship map in my databank. It makes things much less awkward when I observe otherwise strange behavior between people."

"I can imagine," Ruby said. "Although it's Atlas, so I'm not sure what I should be imagining."

"I could give you details, if you liked," Penny said.

"No, thank you," Ruby said quickly, turning red again. "Let's talk about Blake instead! There's some people that think Blake and my sister are together, but I don't really want to think about that too much, because Yang is still my sister, and I've seen Blake talk to and about Sun like she likes him a lot, and there's Adam still around, although that relationship has been dead for years, and then Ilia said she was in love with Blake, and it just seems like we're one confession of love from having the whole team fly apart!" Ruby deflated, out of breath. "Love is supposed to be wonderful, but all it seems to do is break up teams and cause problems."

Penny quietly computed while Ruby leaned against her. Then, coming to a decision, she squeezed Ruby in another big hug.

"Still too tight!" Ruby gasped.

Penny loosened her grip until Ruby's breathing stabilized.

"Ruby," Penny started, hugging more gently, "you're the first person that called me a friend, instead of a tool, a robot, or a weapon. When you said that, something in my programming changed, and I wanted to stay near you so we could stay friends, because it was such a nice feeling. I hadn't realized until then that I wanted friends, but once I knew, I didn't want to lose you."

Ruby rested her head against Penny's chest. "I wanted you as a friend, too."

"What happened at the Vytal Festival was the best thing for our friendship," Penny said, punctuating her statement with a large hiccup. "Because if I had stayed, I might have become more like Adam, and I might have--hic!--driven away your team with my--hic!--jealousy. I'm glad to be working with you again, Ruby, and I hope you'll come to see me as your special friend."

Ruby snored slightly in response. Penny smiled, pulled Ruby in tighter to herself, and continued scanning for the creatures of Grimm.

"This is really cute." Yang said to Blake, when it was time to change watch, pulling out her scroll to take a picture of Ruby cuddled with Penny.

"She looks relaxed for the first time in...years," Blake said, tilting her head at the sight. "Although, I want to know how she learned about Ilia's affection for me. I'm pretty sure I didn't put that detail in any part of the story."

"Ha! So you _weren't_ asleep!" Yang said, pointing a finger at Blake.

"Neither were you," Blake pointed out, crushing Yang's sense of superiority before it could go anywhere.

"Ruby's pretty smart," Yang said, changing the subject. "She might not have needed you to say anything to figure it out. She looks after her team, and keeps track of her friends. So, she'd have to notice you've got everyone chasing your tail these days."

Blake stifled a groan. "Your puns are terrible, Yang."

"That's how you know I like you," Yang retorted.

"Wait," Blake said, confused. " _Are_ you interested in me?"

"You'll have to wait to find out. Maybe I'll apply for membership in your harem after this is all over." Yang grinned at Blake.

"I do _not_ have a harem!" Blake hissed.

Ruby smiled and shifted next to Penny. Penny gathered her back in close and began to sing a quiet song to her.

"Let's just live...  
Just one day, let's forget about our problems.  
Let's fall in love with...life, and just be free.  
The sun will never fade.  
The night won't steal our day.  
Let's laugh and dance and love..."

Penny signed wistfully.

"Maybe some day, Ruby. Maybe some day you'll understand what you're feeling, and what I'm feeling." she whispered. "But until then, I'll always be your friend."

Penny leaned in and kissed the sleeping Ruby on her forehead.

"Not if Yang blackmails her about that first," Blake muttered, before joining Yang to change the watch.


End file.
